untangling the lies

Just got the sweetest email from one of my Profs. This semester has been crazy challenging but I have gotten so much out of it. I finally learned how to close-read successfully, which I’ve been struggling with since my freshman lit class. Anyway, it’s about time. but really, that was such a sweet email. I hope I can have an impact on a student the way she has had on me. (: 

okay. maybe i shouldn’t have said it. even if it was just a passing thought. even if it wasn’t even my passing thought. but you know what? you should have talked to me. you should have asked me what i was thinking or feeling that made me write that, instead of just closing in on yourself and making me feel like shit. if you really want all this real life, together forever, partners in crime, marry me someday, kind of future you keep talking about, you have to learn to open you mouth and talk. even if you don’t like what you’re feeling or i don’t want to hear it. you didn’t even have to talk. you  just had to ask a couple questions. maybe then you would have known that i was writing that based off of a poem i read online and wanted to see if i could recreate it better or just differently. maybe then you would have known that none of those things are true for me. maybe then you would have understood that if i had the choice between him (any him. a specific him, a famous him, even a fictional him) and  you the choice would ALWAYS be you. because “he” isn’t the person who makes me smile every day, or the person who infuriates me with their pointless jealousy that i usually hate, but am always at least a little bit grateful for. “He” isn’t the person who can hold me and make me forget all the awful things that happened to me. “He” isn’t the person i trust with all my secrets and wishes. “he” isn’t the person whose lips pressed into my hair makes me feel utterly and completely safe and happy and wonderful. I can’t lean into “him” and know his arms are going to wrap around me just a little bit tighter. I can’t drive “him” crazy by biting his ear. I don’t have a future or a life or happiness or any of those other things with “him”. because he isn’t real. he’s a figment of my imagination. a piece of my past. he’s just an actor in the one happy memory i have painted for myself out of my teenage years. but even if i wish it was different sometimes, i know he isn’t the person i wished or imagined he was. and you know what? yeah, i’m always gonna have a soft spot for him. he was my first love. and that’s okay. i can’t control who i was with or what i felt for them before i met you. i can only control who i am with and what i do with myself now that i know you and love you.

and you know what? you just talked to me. you asked what you needed to ask and got your answers. and for that? i know you’re my “one and done” as Beckett would say. I love you. I love you. I love you. And I get to see you in 6 days. 

do i still love

your blue-green eyes

because i still have them memorized;

or is it just that

they were once my world?

do i still love your rough

ranch hands

because i still know exactly where all

your callouses are;

or is it just that

they held me for so long?

do i still love that mouth

because it was in my dream last night;

or is it just that

it once spoke the only words that meant anything?

i guess i had better let go again

because i’m still seeing and holding and hearing

and even the ghost of you

has long since passed away

sex is love but love isn’t sex

emotion and passion aren’t twins

my heart screams

for one without the other

to feel without pain or pleasure

i’d give anything—

they say i’m insane

but the truth, the truth, the truth is,

i just can’t grasp these games.

i am

composed of composure and class,

or something that looks rather

like that.

made of making and creating.

though to a lesser degree

than some.

constructed of construction paper

and ink and crayons and paint

to draw.

fashioned with no fashion

sense at all. sweat pants make

life better.

made up of make up

that covers my face and keeps

me fake.

proportioned out-of-proportion to my age

and my might and size

don’t coincide.

constituted of constitutions and

declarations and wars; things worth

fighting for.

and the truth

is i am

tired of people

and places exhausted

from trying to

land in the

pool of soft

gentle graces when

i know i

will never get

it quite the

way i am